The Death of Principle: Let’s Hear No More from the Anti-War Left

Jim is the the director of communications at The Heartland Institute. Prior to joining Heartland, he was an ink-stained newspaperman for 16 years with many stops in "old media."

Jim covered Congress and The White House during the George W. Bush administration for The Washington Times, and worked as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California. He has appeared on the Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, and many local and national talk radio shows to talk politics and policy.

Over at the always interesting Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog, Jason Brennan has a contemplative post about the Bush-era anti-terror policies that Obama’s supporters voted to continue. These are the same voters — and candidate, mind you — who once decried Dubya’s anti-terror policies of Gitmo, drones, supposed “torture,” and all the rest as crimes against humanity worthy of charges at the International Criminal Court.

Yet, in four years, Obama has implemented Bush’s anti-terror policies harder and more bluntly. And Obamaphiles and others who once took to the streets and the blogopshere to protest Bush’s “crimes” happily voted for the current commander-in-chief. The hypocrisy can be seen from space.

… Over the past four years, polls have shown that most Americans have simply become comfortable with warrantless wire-tapping, torture, bullying, and assassination. 2012 Obama supporters have a different moral outlook from 2008 Obama supporters. Most Obama supporters just don’t care that Obama does this kind of stuff, even though when Bush did it (and did less of it), it made them furious. Why?

Perhaps they think, “Well, Obama’s such a great guy. If he does this stuff it too, then he must have good reason. After all, he gets daily CIA briefings and we don’t. He knows more than we do.” If you genuinely think this way, then I submit you must now apologize to George W. Bush for your previous protests. To be consistent, you must say, “Bush was right and I was wrong. He knew what he was doing and I didn’t know better. The fact that Obama does the same and more shows Bush was right.”

I think Bush was right. But at least he endeavored (when possible) to capture terrorists, send them to Gitmo, and have them interrogated so we could get intelligence to stop future attacks on America. If death is the worst, isn’t a little enhanced interrogation, the saving of American lives, and a terrorist who is still alive to muck up our judicial system better than the alternative?

Obama’s method is to send in a drone to take out the suspected terrorist — and kill or injure anyone within several hundred feet of him, including women and children. As a not so great bonus, such a strategy also destroys any chance to gain intelligence to stop a future attack. That sure is a lot cleaner than sending them to the “gulag” of Gitmo that Obama promised to close in January 2009 and never did. (BTW: When is someone on the left, or the MSM, going to follow up on that one. It’s been almost four years. Obama has been re-elected now. He’s safe. Let’s get on that, eh?)

A favorite writer of mine, Victor Davis Hanson, has written a lot about this hypocrisy. It’s funny how the left took to the streets to protest the Bush anti-terror foreign policy, but has been utterly silent when the same policies have been implemented by The One.

All credit to doctrinaire libertarians like Jason Brennan for consistency. I can respect his opinion, even if I don’t agree with it. But let’s hear no more from the anti-war left, OK?

The Death of Principle: Let’s Hear No More from the Anti-War Left was last modified: November 9th, 2012 by Jim Lakely